I've said this in a couple other threads, but I don't believe that gun control is going to get any traction in Congress. Some Democrats will push for it, some other Republicans will table it, some pro-gun control folks like myself will cry foul, and yet another Congress will pass without any gun control measures seeing the light of day.

But here's one thing that maybe we can start doing: better educate ourselves on gun violence, so we can stop stabbing in the dark as to what we can better do to mitigate it.

The problem is that for a couple decades now, the government has not been able to produce any information on gun violence because the NRA has been threatening war if Congress failed to choke off all funding for gun-related research.

The CDC and NIH used to conduct research for decades, but around the time of the late 90s, the NRA became so powerful it was able to prevent these agencies from granting funds to researchers on those topics. McClatchy DC:

Quote:

The CDC and NIH award billions in grants. They fund research into cancer, brain injury, tobacco use, obesity, AIDS, abortion, hearing loss, allergies, infectious diseases, back pain and virtually everything else related to human health. But gun violence is the one area that carries that specific language. The effect has been to limit federal funding into research that could be used to shape policy.

This is irresponsible. We pass hundreds of gun-related laws across the country every few years. Like all laws, we should be able to research the impact of the laws we pass, so we can make decisions based on more than pure ideology.

Anyway, there's a ton of stories on this, but here's a really good one from last year in the Times.

In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, the familiar questions inevitably resurfaced: Are communities where more people carry guns safer or less safe? Does the availability of high-capacity magazines increase deaths? Do more rigorous background checks make a difference?

The reality is that even these and other basic questions cannot be fully answered, because not enough research has been done. And there is a reason for that. Scientists in the field and former officials with the government agency that used to finance the great bulk of this research say the influence of the National Rife Association has all but choked off money for such work.

“We’ve been stopped from answering the basic questions,” said Mark Rosenberg, former director of the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was for about a decade the leading source of financing for firearms research.

Chris Cox, the N.R.A.’s chief lobbyist, said his group had not tried to squelch genuine scientific inquiries, just politically slanted ones.

“Our concern is not with legitimate medical science,” Mr. Cox said. “Our concern is they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.”

The amount of money available today for studying the impact of firearms is a fraction of what it was in the mid-1990s, and the number of scientists toiling in the field has dwindled to just a handful as a result, researchers say.

The dearth of money can be traced in large measure to a clash between public health scientists and the N.R.A. in the mid-1990s. At the time, Dr. Rosenberg and others at the C.D.C. were becoming increasingly assertive about the importance of studying gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health phenomenon, financing studies that found, for example, having a gun in the house, rather than conferring protection, significantly increased the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

Alarmed, the N.R.A. and its allies on Capitol Hill fought back. The injury center was guilty of “putting out papers that were really political opinion masquerading as medical science,” said Mr. Cox, who also worked on this issue for the N.R.A. more than a decade ago.

Initially, pro-gun lawmakers sought to eliminate the injury center completely, arguing that its work was “redundant” and reflected a political agenda. When that failed, they turned to the appropriations process. In 1996, Representative Jay Dickey, Republican of Arkansas, succeeded in pushing through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the disease control centers’ budget, the very amount it had spent on firearms-related research the year before.

“It’s really simple with me,” Mr. Dickey, 71 and now retired, said in a telephone interview. “We have the right to bear arms because of the threat of government taking over the freedoms that we have.”

The Senate later restored the money but designated it for research on traumatic brain injury. Language was also inserted into the centers’ appropriations bill that remains in place today: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

The prohibition is striking, firearms researchers say, because there are already regulations that bar the use of C.D.C. money for lobbying for or against legislation. No other field of inquiry is singled out in this way.

In the end, researchers said, even though it is murky what exactly is allowed under this provision and what is not, the upshot is clear inside the centers: the agency should tread in this area only at its own peril.

“They had a near-death experience,” said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, whose study on the risks versus the benefits of having guns in the home became a focal point of attack by the N.R.A.

In the years since, the C.D.C. has been exceedingly wary of financing research focused on firearms. In its annual requests for proposals, for example, firearms research has been notably absent. Gail Hayes, spokeswoman for the centers, confirmed that since 1996, while the agency has issued requests for proposals that include the study of violence, which may include gun violence, it had not sent out any specifically on firearms.

“For policy to be effective, it needs to be based on evidence,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, who had his C.D.C. financing cut in 1996. “The National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress have largely succeeded in choking off the development of evidence upon which that policy could be based.”

Private foundations initially stepped into the breach, but their attention tends to wax and wane, researchers said. They are also much more interested in work that leads to immediate results and less willing to finance basic epidemiological research that scientists say is necessary to establishing a foundation of knowledge about the connection between guns and violence, or the lack thereof.

The National Institute of Justice, part of the Justice Department, also used to finance firearms research, researchers said, but that money has also petered out in recent years. (Institute officials said they hoped to reinvigorate financing in this area.)

Stephen Teret, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, estimated that the amount of money available for firearms research was a quarter of what it used to be. With so much uncertainty about financing, Mr. Teret said, the circle of academics who study the phenomenon has fallen off significantly.

After the centers’ clash with the N.R.A., Mr. Teret said he was asked by C.D.C. officials to “curtail some things I was saying about guns and gun policy.”

Mr. Teret objected, saying his public comments about gun policy did not come while he was on the “C.D.C. meter.” After he threatened to file a lawsuit against the agency, Mr. Teret said, the officials backed down and gave him “a little bit more leeway.”

C.D.C. financing for research on gun violence has not stopped completely, but it is now mostly limited to work in which firearms are only a component.

The centers also ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the N.R.A. as a courtesy, said Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the centers.

Invariably, researchers said, whenever their work touches upon firearms, the C.D.C. becomes squeamish. In the end, they said, it is often simply easier to avoid the topic if they want to continue to be in the agency’s good graces.

Dr. Stephen Hargarten, professor and chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, used to direct a research center, financed by the C.D.C., that focused on gun violence, but he said he had now shifted his attention to other issues.

yes I am getting it from myself. You asked what it would take FOR ME to consider it an epidemic. That's what it would take FOR ME.

Where do you get your idea that it is NOW an epidemic.. oh that's right... from YOU. You sure as hell didn't get it from any reasonable person's definition of what a ****ing epidemic actually is.

The vast majority of the American people believe that our current level of gun violence is unacceptable and extremely high. If you don't want to use the word epidemic, that's on you, but almost all Americans are more ready than ever to call it that and respond with legislation of one kind or another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

BTW, at least I offered up a measurable figure. YOU on the other hand just cry and whine that whatever we have right NOW is an epidemic. So what is your number jackass? At what metric do we drop below that it is NOT an epidemic?

I'd say we passed what was acceptable when we weren't near the top of the list in least gun homicides. Anything past that, in a country with our phenomenal resources, must be remedied.

"If you're arguing that the United States is incapable of being compared to any other Western nation...

...then that is a position you're welcome to have. But I'm guessing almost nobody else outside of the NRA cocoon shares it."

I do think that it is hard to compare the US in various aspects with other SA countries, mainly Brasil. Canada I know relatively nothing about worth basing an opinion on (this goes for most other SA countries. Additionally, I don't know whether you're being specific as to gun related violence, massacres, or just cultural/political aspects in general. Just trying to learn via teh DC).

(This is the last time I post in the DC I swear. Puta q pariu)

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mavericks Ace

I have completely given up on Alex Smith as a qb. Its painful to watch. Like, worse than watching Colt McCoy.

"If you're arguing that the United States is incapable of being compared to any other Western nation...

...then that is a position you're welcome to have. But I'm guessing almost nobody else outside of the NRA cocoon shares it."

I do think that it is hard to compare the US in various aspects with other SA countries, mainly Brasil. Canada I know relatively nothing about worth basing an opinion on (this goes for most other SA countries. Additionally, I don't know whether you're being specific as to gun related violence, massacres, or just cultural/political aspects in general. Just trying to learn via teh DC).

(This is the last time I post in the DC I swear. Puta q pariu)

Western civilization, brother. Europe and of European descent, with a little Japan and South Korea thrown in if you're so inclined.

Western civilization, brother. Europe and of European descent, with a little Japan and South Korea thrown in if you're so inclined.

I mean, Brasil is a pretty broad mix of portuguese, african, german, and jaanese (more so in Belem, SP and Brasilia). Additionally, you get those ****ing Argentinians/Paraguayans sneaking in a ****ing mixing spanish to confuse everyone like assholes.

I'm not sure what you mean by Western Civ ( N e SA, or something else?) I really am just trying to keep mah head above waters.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mavericks Ace

I have completely given up on Alex Smith as a qb. Its painful to watch. Like, worse than watching Colt McCoy.

Well you have now gone from "the statistics you presented aren't evidence," to "okay, they're evidence, they're just not viable (which I've been saying from the start!" back to "they're not evidence."

Two alternate conclusions one could draw: 1. You don't know what evidence is. 2. You're just squirming because you have no where to go on this particular point.

Edit: Clearly, squirming is the answer, since you decided to only present one potential definition of "evidence" from dictionary.com.

Tell me AC -- what was definition #3? Care to copy and paste that?

Listen you little weasel. You are obviously the one who has issues with the meaning of words. EVIDENCE is only EVIDENCE if it APPLIES. Here is that 3rd definition for you

Quote:

Law. data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.

What you presented does not meet this standard therefore it is NOT evidence. Seriously, how do you not know the meaning of the word??? Evidence does not mean shit I present to you as evidence even though it in fact is just a stat that is meaningless in the context of this debate. You can call it "stats" or "facts" but unless it proves your point by applying to the argument at hand.. it isn't EVIDENCE. Basic understanding of English is a must here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You have yet to really back this up with anything other than unverifiable bullshit that you think you think.

Burden of proof is on YOU. Show me how it DOES apply. I at least have first hand knowledge that informs me otherwise. You on the other hand have nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

If you're arguing that the United States is incapable of being compared to any other Western nation...

...then that is a position you're welcome to have. But I'm guessing almost nobody else outside of the NRA cocoon shares it.

In this regard, it doesn't apply and the burden is for YOU to show how and why it does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You wouldn't know that information, because I haven't provided it. You have chosen to make an assumption, which you were going to do anyway if I had provided an answer.

Here's another tip: don't ask questions when you're just going to believe your own version of the answer. You have no idea who I am, that is by design.

Ah, you assume what I do and don't know about you. Where is your proof to back that up?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

First hand knowledge is important in some realms, but it's not useful online, where we can simply make up shit about ourselves and it's completely unverifiable.

What proof would you like? Proof that I saw what I saw (impossible) or proof that I lived in Spain? (easy)

I mean, Brasil is a pretty broad mix of portuguese, african, german, and jaanese (more so in Belem, SP and Brasilia). Additionally, you get those ****ing Argentinians/Paraguayans sneaking in a ****ing mixing spanish to confuse everyone like assholes.

I'm not sure what you mean by Western Civ ( N e SA, or something else?) I really am just trying to keep mah head above waters.

The vast majority of the American people believe that our current level of gun violence is unacceptable and extremely high. If you don't want to use the word epidemic, that's on you, but almost all Americans are more ready than ever to call it that and respond with legislation of one kind or another.

Ah, yes, because most people want to be histrionic it must be so! Most people during WWII felt it was ok to refer to Japanese as "slant eyed yellow monkeys" and allow them to be interred.. must have been ok, right? And yet again, you assume that MOST people feel this way, where is your proof? What study shows that most Americans think that gun violence is an epidemic? (although I really wouldn't care if they did)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I'd say we passed what was acceptable when we weren't near the top of the list in least gun homicides. Anything past that, in a country with our phenomenal resources, must be remedied.

A complete weasel answer. I gave a hard metric, I expect one in return. Your answer is bullshit that can easily be used to "move the goalposts" as you pointed out earlier. What HARD METRIC makes gun violence NOT an epidemic for you? Don't think I'm going to let you demand one from me and not get one in return.

You are obviously the one who has issues with the meaning of words. EVIDENCE is only EVIDENCE if it APPLIES.

Right. And gun violence in other rich, Western countries applies.

You can argue that it applies poorly, but if you're actually trying to argue that it doesn't apply at all, then you're out to sea. There is nothing that makes other rich, Western nations completely inapplicable to our conversations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

What you presented does not meet this standard therefore it is NOT evidence. Seriously, how do you not know the meaning of the word???

I presented you data in a proof of my case. Just because you don't consider the statistics I've presented as definitive, they are still verifiable and supportive of proving my case.

This happens all the time in law. People will present evidence of their case, and even though the other side does not consider their evidence to be definitive and settle the matter, it's still very much evidence.

You're just wrong, man. Embrace the warm shower of truth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Burden of proof is on YOU. Show me how it DOES apply.

What do you need to see? What standards, to you, establish comparable cultures?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

I at least have first hand knowledge that informs me otherwise. You on the other hand have nothing.

Try this on for size:

You're lying about all the conversations you claimed to have had, though. And you know I can't prove it, and you know you can't prove it, so you're just inventing these conversations and claiming that they count. I on the other hand, have spoken with multiple American ambassadors to Austrailia on several occasions and they've personally assured me that I have a definitive understanding of their people.

Neither one of us can prove what we've personally gone through, period, on this forum.

Personal stories mean jack shit on an internet message board. Wake up and smell the roses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Ah, you assume what I do and don't know about you. Where is your proof to back that up?

You make the case that access to guns makes it more likely for us Americans to commit gun homicides. With less access that number would drop. I counter that it is the other way around. We are a much more aggressive and violent culture and that is one reason why we have more guns. You have NOTHING by way of proof to counter my claim.. I on the other hand have the wonderful case of Switzerland.

Ah the Swiss... with their cocoa with those tiny marshmallows in it! Here they come to save the day!

In Switzerland every able bodied male of military age has access to (in their home) an automatic "assault" rifle. YET, they have insignificant gun violence. BUT HOW CAN THIS BE! With access to all those damn guns! And the REALLY REALLY scary dangerous kind to boot!

You will probably argue that it's because they have strict gun laws.. which they do. But please explain how a strict law about carrying a gun in public prevents someone who has decided to carry out a criminal act(shooting someone) from committing a lesser act of taking the gun out in public? It's stupid so don't even try.

MY argument is that the Swiss (God Bless them and their chocolates) have two major differences from us. #1) every gun owner is well trained (doubt this makes much difference in what we are talking about but maybe, so let's at least put it out there) and #2) they are a vastly different and less aggressive culture.

So, please explain to me why the Swiss have such low gun violence stats when they assuredly have ready access to guns?

You make the case that access to guns makes it more likely for us Americans to commit gun homicides. With less access that number would drop. I counter that it is the other way around. We are a much more aggressive and violent culture and that is one reason why we have more guns. You have NOTHING by way of proof to counter my claim.. I on the other hand have the wonderful case of Switzerland.

Ah the Swiss... with their cocoa with those tiny marshmallows in it! Here they come to save the day!

In Switzerland every able bodied male of military age has access to (in their home) an automatic "assault" rifle. YET, they have insignificant gun violence. BUT HOW CAN THIS BE! With access to all those damn guns! And the REALLY REALLY scary dangerous kind to boot!

You will probably argue that it's because they have strict gun laws.. which they do. But please explain how a strict law about carrying a gun in public prevents someone who has decided to carry out a criminal act(shooting someone) from committing a lesser act of taking the gun out in public? It's stupid so don't even try.

MY argument is that the Swiss (God Bless them and their chocolates) have two major differences from us. #1) every gun owner is well trained (doubt this makes much difference in what we are talking about but maybe, so let's at least put it out there) and #2) they are a vastly different and less aggressive culture.

So, please explain to me why the Swiss have such low gun violence stats when they assuredly have ready access to guns?

And that my friends is GAME.

So... I can't use any information, statistics, or evidence of gun control effectiveness from Western countries, because that's not applicable to our culture.

You really need help with semantics dude. You don't have a very strong grasp of words and their meanings.

Your "facts" and "stats" are only evidence if they apply to the facts in issue.
Yes, in the context of court the term is much broader(actually this is a whole other debate but I won't split hairs right now) but this is a debate and the definition here (which is why you needed to go to the THIRD definition) is obviously one you simply can't grasp. My point is and always was... your "stats" are NOT evidence because they don;t apply. It's fine for you to argue that they in fact are evidence. I disagree but that doesn't change the fact that you accusing me of changing my position, when in fact I was simply trying to help you understand it since you have trouble with words. Something you clearly demonstrated with your misquote of me. Unless you misquoted me in an attempt to purposely deceive and misrepresent my position?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You're lying about all the conversations you claimed to have had, though. And you know I can't prove it, and you know you can't prove it, so you're just inventing these conversations and claiming that they count. I on the other hand, have spoken with multiple American ambassadors to Austrailia on several occasions and they've personally assured me that I have a definitive understanding of their people.

Neither one of us can prove what we've personally gone through, period, on this forum.

Personal stories mean jack shit on an internet message board. Wake up and smell the roses.

Yes, as I pointed out, I can't prove what I saw or heard only that I was there.